Venom
by JustJasper
Summary: William Reid finds out about Spencer's relationship with Hotch and disapproves of it.


It was a bad day – Spencer's mother hadn't recognised him. She'd taken him for one of her younger colleagues, and had talked to him for two hours about how proud she was of her son, who was to her mind just starting college at thirteen. Reid was glad he hadn't bought Hotch this time, because he wanted to do that when she was lucid, and would recall being told about their relationship a few months earlier, or could remember the contents of his daily letters.

As he left Bennington, he froze when a familiar and unwelcome face approached him in the car park.

"Spencer," his father greeted. Reid stared, flexing his fingers around the keys he had in hand.

"What are you doing here?" he asked. "You don't visit her. I know you don't, you've visited her twice in all the years she's been here."

"I didn't come to see your mother. I came to talk to you. You wouldn't answer my calls, I knew this was the only way I'd get to see you."

"There's a reason for that you know, right?" Spencer asked coolly. "It's because you're a selfish flake who left his ten year old son to take care of his mother who is a paranoid schizophrenic, and spent thousands of dollars looking after a sick pet cat instead of contributing to her care."

William Reid nodded slightly, as if he already knew this, and had made some kind of peace with it. Reid breathed out slowly through his nose, his lips a hard line as he fought the urge to scream at the man who had a biological link to him, but was no father.

"What do you want?"

"I'm worried about you."

Reid visibly ruffled and mustered as much venom as he could. "What a time to start, _dad_."

"There was an FBI function, a few weeks ago," William started. Reid remembered it; it had been the first public outing where he was able to acknowledge his relationship with Aaron. "There was a photograph of you and that Agent Hotchner. He had his arm around you. It was intimate," and then after a beat, "are you sleeping with your boss?"

"Yes," Reid said flatly.

"Spencer-"

"Schizophrenic wife, a son who dates men, which one frightens you more?"

"I don't care that you're gay-"

"I'm not gay. I said that I date men, dating men does not preclude attraction to women or gender non-conforming people."

"Bisexual, then," William said, waving his hand dismissively. Reid wanted to grab that hand and twist it up around the man's back until it broke. "It's not right, Reid. It's not allowed."

Reid almost began to explain the process they'd had to go through for them to both keep their jobs while acknowledging their relationship publicly, but suddenly he realised his father didn't deserve an explanation.

"Why do you care, all of a sudden?" Reid asked. "Why this? Why is this so much that it's inspired you to seek me out? The first thing in a long time that has actually made me happy, that has actually made hunting rapists and sadists, pedophiles and serial killers worthwhile? Tell me, what is so offensive to you about my happiness?"

"I'm just worried about you," William said, and his face looked like he meant it. It wasn't enough, and Reid gripped his keys hard.

"Worried? You're worried about a consenting adult relationship? Why weren't you worried when you left me with mom? Why weren't you worried when I was kidnapped and tortured? I know that damn well made the papers. Why weren't you worried when I lost my friends? Why the hell have you turned up now with fatherly wisdom about who I choose to _fuck_?"

"Spencer-"

"Don't 'Spencer' me. Don't you dare. You're here because you can't bear the thought of me being happy without you. You can't believe that I ever could be. But I am. Your absence from my life directly influences my happiness in a positive way."

William Reid looked ready to say something in his defence, but Reid gave him no opportunity to waste his words.

"You have no right to make any judgement on my life, when you have never made any effort to be in it. You were in the same city while I scrimped and scraped to look after a sick woman you were meant to have loved! You were down the road the whole time I needed a father. I do not need you now. I don't need your concern, or your judgement. I don't need you."

"Yes you do-"

"No, I don't," Reid hissed. "I don't need you, I don't want you, and if I ever see you again before you're on a morgue slab, it'll be too soon."

He had no more will to waste his time on his father's impotent floundering of feelings and explanations over lost years. He walked straight past him towards his car, and the neat clip of his father's shoes faded in the opposite direction. He wondered, briefly, if his father looked back.

He didn't. He never would.


End file.
